Sick leave
by StoppingTheMotorOfTheWorld
Summary: John's having a crummy day. After butchering thousands of Covenant aliens he gets... a cold? R&R! My first (dimwitted) attempt at humor. No flames pwease!
1. I

Note: Hmmm, the characters seem a little OOC, but that's alright cause' A) I'm sick (yes, thnx for all the applause I know I'm to nice writing this with such a bad cold and all… ^_^) and B) this is supposed to be funny fanfic though I have an idea at how to continue… I know there's a bunch of holes that someone could pilot a small asteroid through but don't get picky. PLZ. Anyways, for those of you who are curious this takes place during the third book. Think of it as a "what if?" scenario.

Oh yeah, it's short, tell me to continue it, I'm planning on leaving it as a one-shot.

Disclaimer: I don't own Halo. (or do I?… Muhahahaha!) (If ya really wanna know go to my other fic, From the Ashes)

VVVVVV

Prologue

VVVVVV

Pain.

Pain was a state he had come to acknowledge as inevitable as the rising sun… a need similar to breathing. He had experienced it in all it's multitude of glory and goriness, from the small bruises received while playing 'king of the hill', the fever he had gotten at four, the rigorous training he had received to become a Spartan candidate, the bullet wounds, the plasma burns, the smouldering shrapnel… throughout all of it he had never whimpered, never cried. He had vomited, but never complained, he had passed out, but never given up. He couldn't. He was a Spartan.

But the pain he was going through at the moment rivalled anything he had ever felt before, eating away at him like a tidal wave of red hot irons and to compound the problem he was suffering a monstrous indignity: he was sick. 

"You're sick."

That was his A.I., at the moment located in his MJOLNIR armour, a specialized suit of both Covenant and human technology. Using the usual shade of combat gear it was mainly green with shades of black located in grooves and at joints, his facial helmet had a reflective visor that stunted or magnified the amount of light coming in depending on his whims, at the moment it was at a neutral yellow… he doubted anyone could see his eyes.

"That's impossible…" he started hacking. ~Great,~ he thought tiredly, ~betcha Dr. Hasley never thought this would happen did she?~ 

Unfortunately this nightmare was real, somehow, through some fluke of fate, after killing thousands of a extremist-oriented religiously fanatic aliens and coming out basically in the same number of pieces he had come in… he was being downed by a cold. A small little cold, a bacterium or virus that his augmented immune system couldn't handle. The irony of it all defied the odds of…

 "Ah… AH…"

~Ah shite. Where's the Kleenex?~

"-CHOO!"

Great. There was snot under his visor. If he saw Dr.Hasley ever again he was going to have a little word with her about the design specs on the MJOLNIR armour…

"Yuck… that stuff's all over my a central component of my processing u…"

He ignored her. 

He was just too damned tired. A cold? A COLD?! Come on, he was John-117 wasn't he? The best, the luckiest, the most kick-ass Spartan that ever came into existence?

He sneezed again.

He left his pride where it belonged: down the toilet. With a sigh he proceeded to take off his helmet. Now where did the goddamn soldiers store their medical equipment? He was quite sure that the pig-mouthed marines or the OSDT's would bother to carry any tissue boxes… maybe he could use some gauze strips…

"Cortana… what's… my temperature?"

He started coughing again, reflexively, using a motion taught to him nearly twenty years ago he raised his hand as a curled fist and brought to his mouth to 'stop' the germs from spreading. Damn, this was serious; he usually was in control of his actions… that definitely was not on his to do list. Who the hell put up their hand when no one in the next fifty thousand mile (at least) radius couldn't _see_ him. Who else was on this god-forsaken pelican in the middle of nowhere?

"John get the damn stuff off… ohmigodyourrunningafeveratnearly50degreescelsius…" Cortana started speaking faster and faster and faster, since her internal processor nearly reached the goal of one billion calculations per second she tended to speed up when she got excited. Kind of an adrenaline boost for A.I.'s.

~Waitasec. Did she say _fifty_ degrees Celsius?~

John fainted. Content in the knowledge that he should be dead. As the lights went out his brain set off to work on the only image the only memory that still existed in his head:

"You're a sissy, soldier! Show me some spine!" Mendez's voice, somehow sounding over four hundred thousand light years distance.

"Sir, yes sir!"

For a second Cortana looked down at 117 confusedly, did he say something? She shrugged her immaterial shoulders, the big hunk by all rights should be dead…

He mumbled something again.

She heightened the sensitivity of the receptors…

Still nothing…

Suddenly warning klaxons went off.

"…"

"WHAT THE HELL?! He's flatlining?!" 

"…"

"Shhiiit! Dr.Hasley is sooo going to kill me…"

John on the contrary of what most might think at the moment was NOT dead. Subconsciously he heard her and murmured again what he thought of the A.I.: 

"…"

VVVVVVV

My first attempt at a (relatively) humorous fic. This probably will not be occurring again for a number of reasons, 1) I am sick (as I mentioned before) and therefore am NOT thinking properly. 2) I don't have a second reason, I just feel like putting a non-existent one up. 3) (yes, I'm in the sweet realm of tomorrow) I'm not that good at jokes (you know that kid who tries to say something witty and then everyone turns to look at him and thinks, "who's that loser?" That's me!! ^_^)

Don't flame. I'm sick and I don't feel like listening to a loser tell me to stop writing. (yes, I feel pathetic enough to get mean enough and start retaliating which might, incidentally, not be a good thing… ^_^)

If your wondering… I AM SICKK!!! (And don't tell me to stop proclaiming it, I'm a attention-hog (yup, my only vice ^_^) and I loooovvvee saying, specially' when it's true! 

^_^;

Sidenote: I am completely aware OSDT's don't usually board pelicans and that John probably already got a cold in his life… but, this fic is basically how I feel. Real crummy.

AH-CHOO!

*sniffle*

(Thanks for the Kleenex MC!!)

-_-;

(The reviewer and not the Master Chief)


	2. II

Hmmm. I think I actually wrote better before than I do now. This is most depressing. Don't worry about the dream, I'll think of something. Maybe it's prophetic foreshadowing of events to come, maybe it's pure randomness. And if you have any questions seek wisdom in west side story.

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Chapter 2: Physician, know thy cure

Cortana took a deep breath.

And then another. And for good measure, yet another one. They weren't real of course, she was and would always be nothing more than the most powerful piece of artificial intelligence in the known universe (short would be the days of the first contender) and thus completely above any of those trivial human needs like breathing and whatnot.

Still… extraordinary circumstances called for extraordinary measures. She was feeling decidedly nervous and- from the vague recollections of her previous existence- breathing had always helped.

"Okay John…" She said simply, finally relaxing. "Let's do this."

John didn't reply. She knew he wouldn't.

Watching the servomotors hum she wondered, not for the last time, just whether or not this meant the end of Spartan-117. He had survived incredible odds- odds that simply defied imagination and even her processing power. She had estimated his chances of making it- alive- to where he was now represented more significant figures than she was capable of counting on her many, many fingers and toes. Heck, his probability graph had started off pretty minimally and it seemed like he had simply blasted it to smithereens like he had so many other things.

Looking over his comatose body it seemed like the Spartan had finally paid the bill to lady luck.

Well not if she had her way, the A.I. decided. She wasn't joyriding this pelican fourteen billion clicks to the closest human installation alone. The damned human was coming along for the ride. Whether he wanted to or not.

Grinning evilly (or as evilly as a faceless, snot-visored, helmeted piece of MJOLNIR hotwired by the A.I. was capable of) Cortana slowly pried off the chest plate of the armor. And then picked up a scalpel.

This was going to be tricky. Her human counterpart, Dr. Hasley, had never performed an operation in this position before. And while it wasn't quite 'physician, cure thyself' it was awfully close. Especially since she had no idea what was wrong with him besides the fact his heart had stopped. And the equipment- even the armor, was almost no help whatsoever. If she wanted to be able to do anything, it'd have to be a bit more invasive than she'd like.

She took another breath.

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Dreams had always confused John. It wasn't so much that they were nonsensical as they were… well… oddly familiar. He had always been aware that he was dreaming- he wasn't quite sure how and from his psych 101 classes it wasn't a classical response to the usual dream logic.

Then again, he wasn't quite sure how he was supposed to take the fact that elites were waving party hats instead of plasma rifles as anything other than pure fantasy. A very sick fantasy at that.

Still, the stupid grunts were cute.

"So… whatcha ordering?"

The grunt spoke in its usual nasally high-pitched voice, though instead of the makeshift armour that the species usually wore, it was resplendent in its very small, and very odd, tuxedo. In the background, John could see the Jackals attacking each other and screaming profanities. Apparently they were fighting for the honour to fix a broken light bulb. He considered whether or not telling them to get a ladder would be faster and more efficient.

Then again, the mountain of corpses might work.

"Ummm… the special. Whatever it is."

The grunt penned something onto the sheet he was holding. "And for the ladyfriend?"

The Spartan was more than slightly perturbed to see a Hunter sit in front of him. Though the fact that the giant behemoth was composed of millions of small wormlike creatures he was sure it was blushing. This was a little more than disturbing.

The waiter 'hmpf'ed impatiently.

"The same," he said smoothly trying to cover up the disbelief. Most of the female cast in his dreams were part of his unit, the Spartan family or- of more recent note- Cortana.

Then it clicked. He was sick! He must be having one of those stupid dreams that normal people had. He suddenly felt deeply compassionate- as well as sorry- for the rest of the human race. No wonder people had trouble sleeping. Maybe he'd start to believe some of those stories of post-traumatic stress disorder.

"So…" he started eying his 'partner' speculatively. "How's the weather?"

He was somewhat surprised to see the Hunter 'say' something in his mind. Red clouds with thunder. Accompanied by the thought 'nice, thank you.' And… was it raining grunts?

It was. One second the mess hall (he finally realized where he was- the training barracks back at Reach) was fairly empty if somewhat odd, the next second a storm of grunts were falling from the sky. And on cue they all started singing an old archaic song whose lyrics were dead and dated the day they'd been born.

"I feel pretty… oh-so pretty…"

The Spartan screamed and ran away from the table like the pansy he was.

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What the HELL was the Spartan humming? It was maddeningly familiar, but for some reason Cortana couldn't quite place it. The surgery was almost over (his armor would moonlight as a life support system soon enough) and he was technically alive again. Apparently his heart failure, his massive temperature and the cold were all completely unrelated. Then it clicked.

Oh.

Oh my.

Cortana smiled and pushed the record button.


End file.
